Pro workplace writers are strategic. Period. They begin a document with a predetermined goal and a plan for achieving it. Bryan Garner, author of the HBR Guide to Better Business Writing, makes the point when he says, Many people begin writing before they know what they’re trying to accomplish. As a result, their readers don’t know where to focus…
It took a loooong time. But this post concludes my series on writing a research article (RA) based on John Swale’s Create-A-Research-Space (CARS) model. See my first post for an overview of publishing in peer-reviewed journals. This time the focus is on the sections that appear in an RA after the methods are explained. Commonly called the…
It’s something of a paradox. But the space you leave blank in your documents matters. Compare these two forms discussed in an article about the importance of white space by the Nielsen Norman Group. (They help clients make users of their websites, applications, and products happier.) As the article says, The recreated Walgreens.com registration form (right) is…
Those offering advice to professionals who write have long suggested that similar ideas should appear in similar (or parallel) form. In fact, the advice appears in one of the earliest business writing textbooks, first published in the U.S. in 1916. But I’m committed to offering you guidance for writing successfully at work based on quality evidence about the…
Workplace readers often say they want short documents. But shorter doesn’t always equal an easier reading experience. Consider these jury instructions: A fact is established by direct evidence when proved by documentary evidence or by witnesses who saw the act done or heard the words spoken. A fact is established by circumstantial evidence when it may be fairly and reasonably…
A couple of months back, Forbes.com published 10 Tips For Better Business Writing. Tip #3 was “Omit needless words.” The author echoed the time-honored advice of William Strunk, Jr., in The Elements of Style published by Cornell University, where he worked as an English professor, in 1919. (You may be more familiar with later editions of the book by Strunk…
As Forbes.com contributor Naomi Robbins says, Despite the fact that graphs are now ubiquitous in virtually every field of business, very few people have received any training on how to read or design a graph. Naomi ran a graph makeover contest in which she explains why the bar graph shown here is a much better choice than the original…
When you can’t perceive the variation in pitch between different musical notes, you’re considered tone deaf. That’s how the Napa Valley Register labeled the four writers of the flyer at right in 9/11 memorial flyer offensive and tone-deaf. So you can also be tagged as tone deaf if you can’t perceive the variation in attitudes conveyed through different…
People who have influence at work know how to write persuasively. Persuasion is how you successfully lobby for resources from your boss or win funding from an investor. Research found that persuasion was central to the success of 10-30% of all internal, written communication in an organization. The negative connotation of persuasion is created by trust…
Paragraph construction affects whether — and how fast — readers get a writer’s intended meaning. But getting the visual units (white space surrounding lines of text) to match the semantic units (what linguists call “episodes” made up of sentences) in a message isn’t that easy. Research shows readers aren’t good at dividing a document back into the…